


'Tis Merry When Knaves Meet

by clownfop



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Codependency, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Loneliness, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, One-Sided Attraction, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, you know how it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 06:47:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clownfop/pseuds/clownfop
Summary: Pandora is made up of reminders. Quarries and and buildings and vaults and ships with nothing in them. Jack hollowed them all out a long time ago. He would have hollowed him out too, scooped his guts and bones like he was a jack-o'-lantern. Wearing his skin. Rhys was just another mask to him.Rhys brings in an old frenemy to help him with company politics.
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands), Katagawa Jr./Rhys (Borderlands)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	'Tis Merry When Knaves Meet

There's an itch in his brain.

There it is, his trepanation, the little thorn in the side of his head. The port is little more than an open wound at this point, more of a memory than a functional asset.

Pandora is made up of reminders. Quarries and and buildings and vaults and ships with nothing in them. Jack hollowed them all out a long time ago. He would have hollowed him out too, scooped his guts and bones like he was a jack-o'-lantern. Wearing his skin. Rhys was just another mask to him.

(He forgets, so often, that his Jack is not the real Jack. The real Jack has been dead in a vault for years, eyes open, face exposed.)

He was like Dorian Gray in that aspect. More vile inside than out, covering up every blemish and mistake with whatever he could find. A gilded age, Hyperion gold. The Midas touch. Whatever Jack touches turns away.

But boy, sometimes does that itch turn into a buzz. And Rhys, for the most part, does not give in. He'd be stupid to. Jack is his virus, computer and biological, his Trojan horse.

That is, until he does. Because maybe he is like him, maybe he did rise to the top, cream in coffee. But Jack knew what he was doing, a code monkey learning to wear a fresh suit and speak in expenses, whereas Rhys... Rhys has been trying, he has, and he's done _well_ , but that doesn't stop his problems from piling up.

So he awakens the warrior, so to speak.

"Cupcake," he says, all the venom he can muster fizzling out into distortion. A spark sizzling across his synapses. "You've been really, really bad."

Rhys rolls his eyes, the one Jack is housed in. "And what are you going to do about it?" He's got his arm off, spent an hour carefully detaching it to keep him from doing anything. The Atlas database uninstalled, old ECHOEye in. Jack can't do anything.

Jack makes a face, confused. (Rhys likes to think that he's spent the better part of the last few years enveloped in nothingness. Rhys likes to think that he felt it all, or rather, felt nothing, the absence of feeling.) Even like this, Jack will never admit to losing, to having the lower ground. He wrinkles his nose. "What do you want?"

A good question, probably the million dollar one. (Didn't that used to be his name? More like eighty billion.) No, really. Rhys would give a cool million to know what he wants now that he has everything. Maybe more. "I wanted to talk."

"Yeah, honey? Well, I can do that all day." Jack mimics relaxing in the chair across from his desk. It's strange, the way he acts human. He knows that there's nothing solid beneath him, he's just floating and phasing through air, and he still angles himself perfectly to look like he's leaning back in the chair. The more he thinks about it, the more unnerved he is at just how close Nakayama made him.

"I've got a rival," he says, and there's not even a reason to tell him. For some reason it feels good, to get it off his chest. His personal jack-in-the-box, his winning ticket.

"Yeah?" And of course Jack is pretending he's not interested, with his crossed arms and legs, but the slight tilt of his head and lilt of his voice gives him away. He's always loved this, though, the corporate intrigue. This is what it's always been about.

"Runt by the name of Katagawa. Maliwan. Thinks he can get me to merger with him." Rhys snorts, leans back in his desk.

Jack whistles. "Never heard of him before. Maliwan change hands that many times since I been out?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Huh." Jack has that far away look in his eyes, like a computer loading. Then, with a sense of rapport, he pipes back up. "Well, you can't let him have Atlas. If that involves a hostile takeover of Maliwan, well," he gives a shrug of his shoulders.

Leave it to him to be so nonchalant about it. "He keeps coming around here. Petty. Blows up my favorite bagel place just to get a rise out of me." Rhys sighs, world-weary.

Jack just laughs. "What a chump. This some kinda desperate bid for your attention, pumpkin? Sounds like he wants you more than Atlas."

"Maybe." There he goes again, hitting the nail on the head.

"Aw, I might be a little jealous." He's not, he never could be. At least, Rhys tries to convince himself of that. "Sounds like you with me."

Rhys stays quiet, tight-lipped.

"Are we gonna talk about the mustache?" Jack's chin is in his hand, all shit-eating grins and expertise. Can you miss someone that killed a part of you?

"I don't think you're in any place to mock my choices, Mr. Four Layers."

"Ouch," Jack almost bellows. "Kitten's got some bite to him."

The worst part is that he feels _comfortable,_ ready to fall back into old habits at the drop of a hat, Jack's hat. He can see now how this man brought a whole planet to its knees just by smiling and talking. It's all beginning to make sense.

In truth, he understands more now. Not that he's Jack, could ever be that evil, but they say it's lonely at the top. Who else could understand but someone else who's tasted it, held it, felt it? Maybe he gets it a little more, as painful as it is. Maybe he's mad at himself for giving Jack a chance, when if it was him in Rhys' place, he'd kill him without warning. Things have long since stopped making sense.

When the conversation starts to die down, Jack becomes more grim. "So what, you just gonna send me back now?" He looks tired, resigned. There's an inky blackness waiting for him, and Rhys can see that whatever time he's spent there has left him, for lack of a better word, hollow.

The jack is the lowest-ranking face card in a deck, usually. But some card games put him above the king, let him take the lead. It's fitting, Rhys thinks, and it's funny. 

It gives him an idea.

"How do you feel about poker?"

**Author's Note:**

> i think the way jack's being used in bl3 is really interesting. it's like everyone is trying to render his ai harmless by putting him in a gun and various other places but like. idk i love jack so much.


End file.
